


By Any Other Name

by stupidinspaces



Category: Love Simon (2018), Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda - Becky Albertalli
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, first person POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-16 17:48:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14170254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stupidinspaces/pseuds/stupidinspaces
Summary: Wherein Simon is a little lost, Bram is insecure, and Blue gives mixed signals.





	1. Chapter 1

I can’t say that I saw this coming, Cute Bram Greenfield asking me to hang out at WaHo - just the two of us, on a Friday night - but here he is, saying the words.

It’s the fact that it’s so absurd that I actually believe it. My imagination could never have come up with anything as incredible as this, because Bram is _so_ everything and I, on the other hand, am _so not_.

But, “I’m sorry, Bram, I can’t,” I still find myself saying, and it’s easy and hatefully painful at the same time. I look at the ground as I say it, unable to look him in the eye to see how my words register.

He’s quiet for some time, his lips parted in - surprise? I know I would be, if I was a 20 out of 10 both in terms of looks and personality, asking out a 7 out of 10 and getting rejected.

And maybe he is surprised, because he says, “Oh.” But then he nods, slowly. “It’s okay,” he says and smiles shakily, “I didn’t really expect anything to- ah.” He looks away.

“I’m so sorry,” I say, hearing the pleading quality in my voice, “I am so freaking sorry.” And I am, and I’m not even sure if I feel more sorry for him, or for myself.

There’s someone else, I want to explain. Someone else who makes me laugh and cry; someone else who is quite possibly the most interesting person I’ve met and who makes me feel interesting in return, and I haven’t told him yet, but I’m so freaking in love with him.

“No, yeah, it’s okay. Don’t worry about it, Simon,” he says, breathing out gustily. He looks at me from under thick eyelashes, and holy hell, why is this my life? “I’ll see you in school?”

“Yeah,” I say, in lieu of something better.

He starts walking backwards and points a finger at me, “Hey, don’t forget to do the chapter twenty-three reading, okay?”

“Already ahead of you,” I say, hating the crack in my voice for not getting the memo that we’re attempting to demonstrate normalcy here.

Bram nods, smiles again quickly, and turns, snow crunching noisily under his boots.

As I watch him walk away, silhouetted dark blue parka and breath illuminated in puffs by the streetlights, I feel a little bitterness emerging from the sadness.

Here is this cute boy, with soft eyes and soccer calves, whose hair I want to mess up with my fingers asking me out. But I can’t. Because of Blue.

I’ve been emailing with Blue for almost a year now. We found each other through a Tumblr post that caught my attention, and he hasn’t let go of it since.

I don’t even know who he is, though I’ve been pushing to meet with him for months.

A month ago, I thought I’d made a breakthrough. He’d hung a plastic bag with an Elliott Smith t-shirt on my locker, for the holidays. He’d written a message on bluegreen construction card, and I could have cried seeing the perfect, vertical lines of his handwriting. It was the first time he ever contacted me outside of the internet, and I didn’t realize until that moment how much I needed reassurance that he’s real.

At the time, I thought the gesture was romantic. Now that I’m watching Cute Bram Greenfeld walk away from me, I’m a little angry, at Blue. He’ll hang a bag with a t-shirt from my locker, but won’t exchange phone numbers with me, something I’ve been asking him to do for months.

I know it’s not fair of me to demand him to reveal his identity before he’s ready. The way I was forced to come out to the whole school should make me the most sympathetic person in the world when it comes to this, but I’m suddenly anxious to confirm that I closed the door to a possible future for one that’s wide open.

After watching Bram disappear in the distance, I drive around town before driving home, playing rock music loudly enough to wake the neighbors. I only say a quick “Hey!” to my parents before running up the stairs, ignoring my mom’s protests and shutting the door in Nora’s face as she tries to talk to me about her bake sale cookies, in favor of pulling out my laptop and logging onto Gmail.

“Let’s meet,” I write in the subject line. The rest of the words are frenzied outpouring, but I press send before even giving myself enough time to filter out typos, run-on sentences, and desperation in the email.

I refresh the window several times the next hour, but there’s no reply. I look at the time, it’s almost midnight. Blue never emails me past 10:30 PM, I remind myself, but it doesn’t stop me from refreshing the Gmail app again on my phone before finally falling asleep, Elliott Smith t-shirt tucked under my pillow.

Blue doesn’t reply the next day either, nor the day after that, nor the day after that…

I alternate between being miserable and angry, because the atmosphere between Bram and I is stilted now, which it hasn’t been since two weeks after my very public outing half a year ago, at the height of the antagonism against me.

Bram basically rescued me from some douchebags who tried to dunk me in the toilet. After, he cried a little with me in the bathroom, and the next day he came out to his soccer team. We’ve been actual friends ever since, and not just two acquaintances at the same lunch table.

When I come home from school after the fifth day of no reply from Blue, there isn’t any indication that there’s anything different about this day, but it’s finally there: “Re: Let’s meet,” addressed to _my real name_. My heart is beating erratically and I’m getting dizzy from the rush of adrenaline, but the feeling only lasts until halfway through the email, where the more I read the more my blood turns to ice.

_“I didn’t know how else to tell you that I know that you are Jacques. I knew for sure three months ago. I was so happy when I found out Jacques was you; I’d been wanting to talk to you for a long time. If I’m honest, I haven’t imagined Jacques to be anyone else at all. I wanted to tell you who I was, too, but I was scared._

_I did tell you once that Blue is more like my superhero personality, where I can say all my thoughts to you without fear of being awkward or weird or dramatic. I didn’t think you would like my civilian personality as much. Turns out I was right._

_I can recover from this, I just need time. We can still be friends, but I need to reorganize my thoughts.”_

He didn’t sign his email.

I send him a bunch of question marks in reply, writing, “What the hell are you talking about??? Of course I would like your civilian personality as much, if not more than your ‘superhero’ personality???” I just know it’s the truth.

There’s no reply, even after I refresh both my browser and the Gmail app on my phone a hundred times throughout the night.

I send another email in the morning, pleading with him to reconsider. I don’t want to give him time to “reorganize” from me.

The next day, when there is still no reply, I decide not to wait. I type a lengthy description of my feelings, telling him what it’s been like to find someone like him and emailing him, how much he means to me. I type “Us.” in the subject line and grab my keys, deciding to go for a drive around town again, leaving my phone behind so I won’t be tempted to check it.

When I come home, I trudge up the stairs, feeling like I’m awaiting some sort of sentencing. I don’t know if I really believe my email would have fixed whatever the fuck the problem is. I alternate between hopelessness and hopefulness with every step.

I reach for my laptop. There’s (1) new mail in my inbox. My hearts skips a beat before I see who it’s actually from.

It’s a fucking error message.

I refresh the page, but the screen shows the same fucking thing over and over.

Blue’s deleted his account; he never even read my last email.

I don’t really know what the appropriate response to losing the possible love of your life is. Smash your three hundred dollar laptop against the wall? Run around the neighborhood? Cry into the Elliott Smith t-shirt he gave you?

In the end, I don’t opt for any of those, though I do end up crying. Apparently loudly enough for Nora to come rushing into my room.

Several weeks pass by, several weeks in which I stare at the back of Bram’s head in Mr. Wise’s English class, knowing that I should try to fix things with him. But I freeze whenever I see the miserable look on his face whenever he sees me. It actually physically hurts.

Several weeks where I comb through every email that was sent between us for clues of his identity, for answers. I evaluate every word choice and verb tense. In the end, I don’t gain any new knowledge other than I’m legit in love with him.

Several weeks where I wonder if I should recruit my friends into helping me find Blue. He gave me enough information to be able to figure out who he is, if I dump the Simon logic and use actual logic to find him.

But Blue doesn’t want to be found. And I can’t decide how to feel about that. Since I can’t decide on one emotion, I just feel everything shitty: hopeless, insecure, angry, and just really fucking upset.

Mr. Wise’s English class becomes the worst part of my day. Where I have to stare at Bram sitting in front of me. And where I stew in resentment for how I inadvertently kept dropping hints like who the heck my English teacher is to Blue which led to him figuring out my identity.

He was happy to know it was me, he wrote in his email, but his actions say otherwise. Or maybe he really meant it in the past tense...

Thinking of his last email just makes me scratch my head, because I can’t really think of a way that I could have shown that I wouldn’t like his “civilian” personality. Maybe Blue is somebody I had insulted somehow?

It hurts that no matter how many times I analyze the situation, there are no revelations. All I can do is speculate, because he knows who I am, but I don’t know who he is. He doesn’t want me to know who he is. 

I just can’t get over that fact. 

Twenty minutes into the worst hour of my school day, I don’t even pay attention when Mr. Wise hands me my quiz from last week, only pausing slightly at the perfect score at the top of the sheet. I didn’t even read the chapter, and I’m a terrible guesser. But apparently not as terrible as I thought?

No, I actually am still a terrible guesser; he handed me somebody else’s quiz.

And really, being handed the wrong quiz shouldn’t be a big deal. It’s just a small everyday coincidence, but it’s anything but when I see it: perfectly vertical, straight handwriting.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the book, there's an email exchange between Blue and Jacques. Bram figures out Jacques is Simon. Simon writes, well now you can tell me your superhero identity since you know mine, and Bram writes that Blue is his superhero identity and his irl identity is his civilian identity.
> 
> I have some... feelings on this. 
> 
> Thanks a lot to bookwormgal26 for all her feedback to this fic!

“You’re Blue?” I meant to say it like a statement; I meant to be accusatory when I finally say it, having envisioned this moment repeatedly the past forty minutes. But it’s already not going as planned, because it comes out more like a question, and I sound small and betrayed more than anything. 

I had tapped Bram on the shoulder to hand him back his quiz, where his name was written in the upper right corner of the paper. “This is yours,” I said, voice shaking a little. I don’t know if I was more scared of being wrong, or of being right. 

Bram had turned sideways in his seat to retrieve it, seeming to realize what I already knew the minute he saw the quiz in my hand. 

...The way that I stared at him like I was drowning and he was a raft probably clued him in.

The remaining forty minutes of the class ticked by slowly, but also too quickly. I kept looking for the small inclination of his head towards me, a signal that we would talk after class, but he remained stubbornly facing forward. It didn’t matter, there was no freaking way I was letting him leave the classroom without talking about _this_. And talking about _this_ was all I could think about, heart beating like it would stop at any moment.

Bram looks around, at the students still packing their bags to head out to lunch, at a student arguing with Mr. Wise about his grade. His right arm reaches out to grab his left by the elbow, forming a sort of barrier. His book and notes are still on the table. I look at the open page of his notebook to confirm the same vertical handwriting. 

“Simon... “ he says, and I only start to feel on even footing again when I hear the fear in his voice.

I start packing, stalling until everyone leaves the classroom. I can’t do this with people watching either. Bram follows my lead, putting in his things in his backpack methodically. 

“Everything okay, boys?” It’s Mr. Wise, the last person to leave. I watch Bram turn his head slightly and nod, watch his adam’s apple as he swallows nervously. 

“Okay. Don’t forget to turn off the lights when you head out,” Mr. Wise says, voice skeptical. Everyone’s too aware that we’re dealing with some intense teenage drama here. It’s kind of hard to miss when the school’s only out gay kids stare at each other dramatically in the middle of the day. Some girls were snickering and kept giving each other looks as they left, as if they were being subtle. I can’t really bring myself to give a fuck about rumors at the moment.

“Why?” I say as soon as the door clicks shut. “Why did you--” _\--not tell me it was you all along? --delete your account? Did you intend never to talk to me again?_ I can’t decide which is most pressing. 

Bram averts his eyes, backpack strap hanging limply from his hand. “I worked up the courage to ask you out for weeks. And you said no.” 

“Your civilian personality,” I say, connecting some dots, and I don’t know which reaction to go with. It’s kind of a ridiculous scenario because, “You do realize I only said no because I thought I was d-- I was already talking to somebody,” I gesture towards him helplessly, “to you?” 

Bram shakes his head, ghost of a smile on his lips. “Yeah, I realized that after you sent me that email right after... I know I wasn’t being fair. It’s just…” he trails off, looking out the window.

Hearing him refer to our emails is a little surreal. I’ve found Blue.

I want to interrupt his thoughts, force them in the direction I want, but I wait for him to finish his point, preparing to shoot down whatever excuse he has to come up with.

“I was scared you would be disappointed,” he says eventually, licking his lips, “I never lied to you in the emails. I actually feel like that’s where I’ve been most myself. But I’m not like I am in emails. I’m painfully awkward. Online, I have time to edit my thoughts so I’m not as embarrassing.” 

He looks at me, but I don’t know what to say suddenly. It’s kind of painful to know he feels this way. 

“I don’t think you’re awkward,” I say, slowly. “But even if you were, I wouldn’t give a fuck. I like awkward people. And why didn’t you just tell me straight up? Why did you just break up with me by deleting your account?”

Bram stares until I’m forced to realize my word choice. 

“I mean, I feel like Blue’s been my…” I can’t say it, I feel embarrassment warm me all the way to the tips of my ears. It sounds ridiculous to say it to this guy: the guy who’s both my internet boyfriend, and the guy I’d fleetingly imagined as a boyfriend and dismissed as nothing more than daydream. 

“It wasn’t the best reaction,” Bram says, finally. “I swear I was going to tell you, eventually, but… You still hadn’t realized I was Blue, and I thought I was being so obvious already. I figured maybe you would have realized my identity earlier if you’d actually wanted to see me as Blue.” I panic when he hikes up his bag on his shoulder, looking towards the door, but he stays in the same spot, moving only to adjust his weight over to the other leg. 

I don’t know if that logic holds, but... “Would it help if I say it’s not that I didn’t want you to be Blue, I’m just an idiot?” My heart feels to have dropped somewhere in the knee region. 

Bram snorts, smiling humorlessly. He looks out the window again. “But there’s a reason you like Blue better, isn’t there? Even though I know he’s me, I couldn’t help but resent him a little, and I just- deleted him from existence.” He shrugs. “I know it’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid,” I say, even though I still don’t understand completely, because he looks distressed, “But, you are Blue, no matter how many times you edited before you hit send. And I’m just- really glad it’s you…” 

Bram looks at me when I say that, apparently the first right thing I’ve said because there’s a smile emerging on his face, small and shy and hopeful.

“Were you surprised when you found out it was me?” I ask. He’s quiet long enough that I remember that I do understand, the fear of not living up to the other’s expectations.

“Not really. I’d been seeing Jacques as you for some time, that’s how I figured it out. It was actually kind of obvious. You talk the same way you write.”

I can’t help but laugh at that, even though I’m trying to preserve this momentum of confessions going. “Clark Kent with glasses.”

Bram smiles fully at that, eyes crinkling in the corners. No, I want to say, I wasn’t imagining you. You are so much better. “Redundant,” he says. “Clark Kent always wears glasses.”

I exhale, proud and relieved to see a genuine smile as a reaction to something I’d said. I don’t know if it’s enough to progress anywhere close to the results I want though, which is making out in the back of my car.

Probably not, because he’s still avoiding my eyes. We stand there in awkward silence. I keep racking my brain for something to say but the conversation has stilted to a halt, even though there’s still so much to say.

Bram’s mouth twists. “I feel a little weird. I wasn’t expecting you to find out today.” He fiddles with the strap of his backpack. 

I shrug, a knot in my throat. Only something as flimsy as coincidence led to this moment. “Yeah, I wasn’t either.”

He looks at his watch, smiling apologetically. “I hate to say this, but we better get going,” he says, straightening to his full height. I don’t know if I ever noticed how much taller he is. “Only ten more minutes till the bell rings.”

We shuffle awkwardly to the door. And it should feel anticlimactic, but the look he gives me when we separate is anything but: nervous and hopeful and full of promise. 

 

I don’t know how I managed to get through the rest of the day at school. I feel like someone or something must have taken control of my body because I don’t even have clear recollection of what I did after we separated after lunch hour. I looked for Bram after school, but Abby reminded me that “Nick and the rest of the soccer team” have a game at a neighboring high school this evening. 

I debated whether to go or not, but imagined myself only hanging around awkwardly. I ultimately decided to head home, only to spend most of the evening reading through Blue’s previous emails, imagining Cute Bram Greenfeld writing them. There’s no one else I could imagine writing these now. 

“I always seem to hold myself back,” he wrote in one of them. 

And I think I do understand, a little.

I pick up my phone, feeling a little pumped up now; the universe told me I get to have Bram Greenfeld and I’m not settling for less. 

I scroll to the letter G in my address book. It’s funny to think how often I’ve begged Blue for his number, and it’s been on my contact list for months now. _Bram Greenfeld._ Jesus, just the sight of his name has me ridiculously fond. I click on it to start a new message. 

The last message in our thread was from me, sent around 10pm a week before I almost ruined everything. “Ok thanks for the info. sorry againn for txting so late!” I cringe. Definitely not cute and grammatical.

“Hey Bram,” I write, careful with inputting the letters, “Hope you haven’t deleted this number either--” I click on the backspace button. Okay, probably too early to joke about that. Coming across as passive-aggressive would be the least productive way to win him over right now, I remind myself.

 _“Dear Bram,”_ I type instead, and I think of the boy who cried with me in the danky school toilets, brown eyes sympathetic. And I think of the boy who would sit on his desk, looking out the window as he emailed me instead of writing his English essay (which he for some demented reason actually loves to do). Both are one and the same. My heart swells. 

The words come easily after that, but it still takes me an hour before sending it, obsessing over every word. 

_“I’ve thought about what you were trying to tell me earlier. And I do think I understand. For me, Jacques is my civilian identity. Simon is my superhero identity. Simon’s the one who always makes an effort to be funny and outgoing. Simon hides things. He doesn’t want to burden his friends and family. Jacques tells things straight up. I fell in love with Blue because I could open up about anything and everything, and not be ashamed. Blue never judged. I couldn’t let go of that._

_Do you know how much shit I went through, deciding between you and /you/?_

_Do you know how fucking amazing it is for me now that I know you’re both of these halves that I love?_

_I know you’re not perfect, even though you totally are. You’re awkward, sometimes. You overthink things, a lot. You don’t like Harry Potter (and you ship Harry/Ron???) which should be a dealbreaker, honestly. But it’s not, because I know you’d still write me a three-page Word document detailing house personalities (I should know because I copy-pasted your email and saved it onto a Word document…). And because I know you’re all these other amazing things too. You’re super smart, and funny, and athletic, and notice things that matter- even, and especially, the small things- because you really fucking care._

_Oh and I forgot to write one thing. You’re a little insecure, and I don’t know why, because you’re all sorts of awesome. (And hot??? I don’t know if you’ve seen yourself ijs…)_

_And yes, I took my time to write this. I edited it a lot. But it’s still me saying this and I mean all these words 100%. I just had to think of how to get them right. Because they’re kind of important right now. Maybe the most important words I’ll ever write. Love, Simon.”_

The entire message is sent in five separate bubbles, but they’re now out there for him to read. I don’t get a reply but I’m not really expecting one yet, it’s midnight; Bram is most likely already asleep. I imagine him in bed, his room a sea of blue. His phone would be on his night table, and it would vibrate with an incoming message from “Simon Spier.” It’s going to wait there, unread, until he wakes at the break of dawn to get ready to go for a jog. I fall asleep anxiously thinking on this.

In the morning, my phone is the first thing I reach for, even before my glasses. There are five new messages. Three are from Leah, one is from Nick, and the last one is from the very person I even bother reading my messages for.

 _“Dear Simon,”_ he’d written, and I imagine him reading my text, smile soft in the morning light. He would still be in bed when he did, I decide, because he wouldn’t be able to wait to hear from me either. I imagine him agonizing over every word of this message, his cute knobby fingers carefully maneuvering the keypad, _“I woke up to your letter today. I feel like reading it is an extension of my dream- the best one I’ve ever had. I have so many things to say in response, but I’m ready to say them face to face this time. See you in school today. Love, Bram.”_


End file.
